Child Protection
Working to see all children cared for, protected, and participating in their communities by strengthening child protection policies and practices and promoting an environment free from violence
Child Protection
Working to see all children cared for, protected, and participating in their communities by strengthening child protection policies and practices and promoting an environment free from violence
Highlights
World Vision partners with the U.S. Department of Labor to combat child and forced labor in many parts of the world and to promote workers’ rights to safe and decent work.
World Vision is conducting cutting-edge research with Johns Hopkins University using system dynamics modeling to predict and effectively implement targeted responses to gang and community violence against children in Latin America.
World Vision is the co-chair of the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action alongside UNICEF, and is a founding member of the Joining Forces for All Children Alliance.
Child Protection
Every child deserves the opportunity to live, grow, and thrive. However, millions of children are living in catastrophic circumstances and endure abuse, exploitation, exclusion, and discrimination. Violence has far-reaching and serious effects on the well-being of children. Research shows that adverse experiences in childhood can cause long-term negative outcomes in adulthood. In contrast, a safe and caring environment provides children the opportunity to thrive, even in difficult circumstances.
World Vision adopts an integrated and holistic transformational development approach to programming for the most vulnerable children, rooted in our desire for wholeness of life for children, their families, and their communities. World Vision seeks to strengthen local and national child protection systems — partnering with government, civil society, and community stakeholders so that they are empowered, coordinated, and working together to create a protective environment that cares for and supports all children.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5, 8 & 16
Child Protection Subsectors
World Vision utilizes an adaptive, system-strengthening approach for child protection at the community and national levels. Using evidence-based practices aligned with the INSPIRE framework for ending violence against children, we are reaching the most vulnerable populations, especially in fragile and conflict areas.
Globally, around 160 million children are engaged in child labor. Often deprived of the opportunity to learn and play, many of these children are engaged instead in unsafe and often forced labor and exploitative conditions, with long hours and little pay. Household economic insecurity, lack of viable education opportunities, and traditional social and gender norms are all driving factors for child labor and can only be addressed fully by comprehensive, multisectoral solutions.
Child Labor FAQS:
How does World Vision’s work address child labor?
World Vision works toward reducing child labor by addressing the root causes of this practice through improved education and livelihoods; local, national, and international advocacy; and strengthened family resilience and community support. We work with formal and informal stakeholders — government partners, employers, workers groups, and community and civil society leaders — to ensure children have opportunities to study, play, and thrive in resilient families and protective communities.
Workers’ rights include the rights of children to be free from economic exploitation, hazardous work, or work that interferes with their education. Also, World Vision promotes occupational safety and health (OSH) standards for workers and employers in the workplace and trains labor inspectors to ensure compliance with labor rights and OSH standards. When workers’ rights are not protected, the resulting low wages and economic conditions create a situation in which households must rely on additional income from children. This puts them at risk for exploitation from employers and disrupts their development and well-being. The international Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly states that children must be protected from economic exploitation and any work that interferes with their education or disrupts their development.
Youth and adolescents of legal working age entering the workforce for the first time enhance their life trajectory when they are aware of, and can advocate for, their protected rights and age-appropriate work opportunities. Young adult workers who are new to the workforce and children of legal working age represent some of the most vulnerable members of the workforce given their tendency to fill low-wage, unskilled, and often dangerous jobs. They are exposed to potential abuse and exploitation in the workplace while often unaware of their rights. Conversely, where children’s rights — including their right to education — are protected, their life expectancy increases, along with their improved livelihoods and social well-being.
World Vision collaborates and engages with governments, private sector actors, and workers organizations — and works directly in communities — to advance the protection of children from child labor and to support the awareness of and compliance with labor rights. We partner with key private sector actors, the United States government, and foreign governments to help ensure access to decent work opportunities for youth and their families. World Vision values private partners and works closely with employers, trade associations, and labor inspectorates to increase their commitment to upholding labor rights laws.
What are some examples of World Vision’s work in this area?
In Mexico, our Campos de Esperanza Project (funded by the U.S. Department of Labor) aims to reduce child labor in migrant agricultural communities in Oaxaca and Veracruz by promoting and protecting labor rights and creating linkages for migrant children and their families to participate in existing education, training, and social protection programs.
In Guatemala, the goal of the USAID-funded Puentes Project is to address the drivers of migration by empowering youth with information, knowledge, and skills, and connecting them to support services to improve their access to employment, education, development, and improved well-being and quality of life.
In Bangladesh, World Vision’s Child Protection Program (2016 to 2022) provided a comprehensive response to child labor focused on withdrawing children from labor, increasing children’s access to school, improving parents’ incomes, and training older children for jobs that are safe, legal, and have decent earning potential. Since it began in 2016, the project impacted the lives of over 64,000 people, and staff and participants from the project have been recognized by the government.
Why is it so important for governments, civil society, and the private sector to work together on child labor?
Half of the world’s children — over 1 billion globally — experience some form of violence every year. Whether they suffer physical or sexual abuse within the home, bullying in school, exploitation in gang-controlled communities, or exposure to harmful traditional practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), children experience violence at all levels of society. World Vision supports the development of protective environments for young people, where they are empowered to protect themselves and their peers, families are better equipped to care for their children, community and faith leaders are working to support children in need, and the government is held accountable to fulfill its mandate to protect and assist children exposed to violence. Working alongside community members, we equip young people with life-skills and resilience training and their caregivers with training in positive parenting. We also help to mobilize communities to challenge traditional practices that are harmful to children.
Ending Violence Against Children FAQS:
How does World Vision use a multi-sectoral approach to address complex issues like child marriage and FGM?
Just as the drivers of violence against children are varied and complex, achieving meaningful results requires multi-sectoral solutions. This means that in addition to ensuring robust laws and policies and adequate services, World Vision also considers the root causes of violence. We work to address harmful social norms, to increase access to affordable, quality education for children, and to support vulnerable households in increasing their livelihoods and improving their parenting practices.
For example, through positive parenting training, caregivers are not only trained on how to report and mitigate abuse but are also engaged in community dialogue spaces where they can meet with community leaders and learn alternative parenting approaches from early adopters of positive behavior.
How does World Vision work with governments to institutionalize sustainable reforms to protect children?
Sustainable improvement of protective environments for children requires a lasting contribution to the systems and structures designed to protect them. Wherever possible, World Vision works in partnership with government and formal stakeholders to support lasting change within these structures.
In Armenia, the Community Level Assistance to Social Services project is a seven-year project funded by USAID and implemented by World Vision and the Child Development Foundation. The project supports Armenia in strengthening its social protection system through effective community-based social work and improving the lives of the most vulnerable children and their families in 10 regions (60 communities) and in Yerevan. The project’s two main objectives are to establish community-based social workers within local government and enhance communities’ abilities to identify and address their social issues.
The project has contributed to legislative changes related to child protection, with successful advocacy leading to the establishment of a government-mandated Community Social Worker (CSW) position at the local level. Additionally, in collaboration with the Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and academic partners, World Vision helped develop training and certification curricula for CSWs and an online training program to increase the capacities of social workers in remote areas of the country. Initiated by the project and now mandated and largely funded by the Armenian government, CSWs are recognized as key actors in the early identification and prevention of violence and abuse, and are primary points of referral to critical services for vulnerable children..
How does World Vision work with faith leaders to prevent violence against children?
World Vision recognizes that faith leaders are essential partners in sustainably moving the dial on preventing violence against children. However, faith leaders are not automatically equipped to further the cause of the most vulnerable in their communities. We work directly with faith leaders of diverse religious backgrounds to adopt development-appropriate concepts, empowering them to transform their thinking and to inspire their communities to better meet the needs of the most vulnerable. Research conducted in three countries with different religious environments found that faith leaders participating in World Vision programming were motivated to improve child well-being. Notable positive changes were observed in attitudes about child marriage, corporal punishment, and the willingness to report child abuse.
As key influencers of attitudes and norms in their communities, faith leaders are essential partners in sustainably moving the dial on preventing violence against children. We work with faith leaders through Channels of Hope for Child Protection (CoH-CP), World Vision’s signature model for motivating faith leaders and their communities to address abuse, neglect, exploitation, and other harmful practices. World Vision began implementing the methodology in the early 2000s and has since adapted the model to tackle other difficult and often sensitive issues, such as gender equality; gender-based violence; disease outbreaks (such as Ebola and COVID-19); and maternal, child, and newborn health.
In India, Channels of Hope has equipped 450,000 faith leaders in more than 90 countries to address various child well-being challenges — and in 2020 alone, the CoH-CP program was implemented in 34 countries. The program has been adapted to the needs of differing faith contexts, including ecumenical Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim communities.
In our Child Protection Program in India, 818 Muslim, Hindu, and Christian faith leaders have received training on CoH-CP to date. We work with vulnerable children in rural West Bengal and Assam, including children living in brothels where their mothers are commercially sexually exploited, and child sex trafficking survivors live in government aftercare homes while they wait to be reunited with their families. As part of the CoH-CP workshop, Hindu scholars, Muslim theologians, and Christian faith leaders were able to expound their own scriptures that support protecting children from various forms of violence and exploitation. As a result, the Faith In Action— Call for Prayer and Action initiative was organized in association with Muslim faith leaders, covering 240 mosques (44,720 people), and the Save Our Girls campaign was organized in association with Hindu faith leaders, covering 10 Hindu temples (1,881 people).
“Before I came into contact with World Vision, we did not know how early marriage can affect girls negatively. We kept facilitating nikah (Muslim marriage ceremonies) for girls below 18 years. We were not aware of the legal ban on child marriages. But World Vision taught us for the first time about the consequences of child marriage for children and how it often ends in child sex trafficking. So now, from the Basanti Block Imam Association, we declared that we will no longer solemnize marriages if girls are below 18 years. We have also passed a resolution in our association that we will report all crimes against children immediately to concerned authorities without fear or favor. Now every Friday, after namaaz (worship), we conduct small meetings in our mosque to review the situation of our community children, especially the most vulnerable, and support them whatever way we can. We hope our partnership with World Vision will help us to secure the future of our community children in the days to come.” — Muslim faith leader
Human trafficking is a global crime, and yet an estimated 49.6 million men, women, boys, and girls are impacted by forced labor, sexual slavery, and forced marriage — with children representing one in four of those affected. Trafficked children are often treated as commodities to be exploited for profit, and they experience inhumane conditions, restricted movement, and often severe physical and sexual abuse.
World Vision works across the “Four Ps” (prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnership) to: 1) build the skills and resilience of vulnerable people and community systems and structures to reduce exposure to and risk of trafficking; 2) equip service providers to provide trauma-informed, victim-centered services tailored to survivors’ diverse needs and to support the long-term reintegration of survivors in their communities; 3) promote the implementation and enforcement of law by building the capacity of the justice system to employ appropriate and sensitive engagement of survivors in prosecution proceedings; and 4) support collaboration among formal justice and social welfare stakeholders, civil society organizations, and other protection partners for a comprehensive response to crime.
For this purpose, World Vision has partnered over the years with the U.S. Department of State; USAID; U.S. Department of Labor; UNICEF; Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office; the European Commission; and multiple private foundations to counter trafficking, with programs addressing trafficking in persons (TIP) and labor exploitation in over 20 countries.
Trafficking in Persons FAQS:
How does World Vision work to prevent crimes like trafficking and exploitation?
World Vision works in partnership with local hospitals, schools, community leaders, faith communities, and law enforcement agencies to ensure that child protection is a priority. We encourage community stakeholders to raise awareness of and advocate for child rights and protection, to speak out against harmful attitudes and practices, and to identify and respond to abuse and exploitation when they encounter it.
World Vision focuses on the most vulnerable — children separated from family care, who live or work on the street, who are affected by disaster or conflict, or who are not in school — and empowers them with a targeted education on what trafficking is and the recruitment techniques that traffickers use. By equipping vulnerable children with access to quality education and supporting families to meet children’s immediate needs, such as food and housing, we are contributing significantly toward preventing child exploitation and trafficking.
What does World Vision do to promote the restoration and reintegration of survivors of exploitation and abuse?
Children who have been abused or exploited need time and care to recover. World Vision works to reunite children with their families and communities when possible and appropriate. But we start by helping children who have been exploited to heal through medical, legal, and psychosocial services, and by equipping them with life skills, livelihood training, and education opportunities. Often, this means providing a safe place for children to go while also offering counseling and recovery activities.
What are some examples of World Vision’s work to build institutional capacity to produce sustainable results in addressing TIP?
In Armenia, through the U.S. Department of State-funded Together Against Trafficking in Persons project, World Vision is working to enhance the abilities of government agencies and actors to properly identify and adequately support trafficking survivors through improved policy, capacity, and coordination. World Vision is partnering with the Armenian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and the Health and Labor Inspection Body to standardize identification and response protocols to improve the quality of survivor support. At the same time, we seek to build the capacity of formal and informal legal, health, and social welfare service providers to ensure timely and coordinated survivor-centered services and care.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, World Vision’s Enhance National and Local Capacities to Combat Trafficking in Persons project worked in close partnership with the national Office of the State Coordinator for Combatting Human Trafficking to build government and local capacity to respond to trafficking in persons at all levels through improved protection, prevention, and prosecution. With support from the U.S. Department of State, the project worked with government and local institutions to ensure that anti-trafficking efforts were embedded in the work of those institutions, while sensitizing the public to traditional cultural practices and broader social norms/attitudes that unintentionally condone some forms of trafficking. The project established operational protection groups (local referral mechanisms) for survivors of trafficking in 12 municipalities, and developed tools, training curricula, and guidance for adhering to national reporting and referral protocols for TIP cases.
The Guatemala Anti-Trafficking in Persons (GATIP) project worked to improve the quality of victim-centered trafficking investigations by strengthening public institution coordination and supporting survivor-informed, victim-centered law enforcement, operations, and criminal justice proceedings. The project has worked with service providers in two shelters and assisted 340 children and adolescents since 2018. GATIP has collaborated with the Secretariat against Sexual Violence, Exploitation, and Trafficking in Persons to update official guides on the identification and referral of victims of trafficking (VOTs) and to create an interactive virtual course for adolescents on trafficking in persons. The project also worked with the judicial system to produce protocols and training curricula on caring for survivors of human trafficking and ensuring dignified and transformative reparations. The project has conducted over 88 trainings for over 2,500 judicial, criminal justice, and victim support staff on trauma-based and victim-centered investigation techniques.
World Vision is partnering with the government of Mongolia and the U.S. Department of State to implement the Mongolia Child Protection Compact project, which aims to strengthen Mongolia’s efforts to prosecute and convict child traffickers with a victim-centered approach, provide comprehensive trauma-informed care for child VOTs, and prevent child trafficking in all its forms. The project addresses all four of the U.S. Department of State’s programming objectives—interagency coordination and collaboration, prosecution, protection, and prevention. The project’s goal is to increase the capacity and collaboration of the government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders to effectively prosecute and convict child traffickers with a victim-centered approach, to provide comprehensive trauma-informed care for child VOTs, and to prevent child trafficking in all its forms. The project aims to build the capacity of national and local government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders engaged in counter-trafficking and child protection activities.
In Myanmar, Phase 2 of our U. S. Department of State-funded Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) project follows the original Burma ATIP project that ended on Jan. 30, 2019. The goal of Phase 2 is to strengthen the support of comprehensive reintegration services for trafficking victims through coordinated local, national, and regional approaches. The project worked toward this goal by assisting over 300 survivors of trafficking to return from Thailand to Myanmar, training over 100 case managers and service providers, equipping survivors with livelihood assistance, and providing other reintegration support.
Conflict and crises, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbate child protection concerns while also creating new ones. The indirect impacts of humanitarian emergencies pose a clear and present danger to children, particularly the most vulnerable. Global research indicates significant spikes in cases of children experiencing physical, emotional, and sexual violence, as well as a prevalence of child labor, during humanitarian emergencies. Children separated from parental care due to crises are particularly vulnerable to violence and abuse.
At the onset of a conflict or crisis, World Vision first seeks to ensure children have basic needs met and that safe and protective spaces exist for children to learn, play, and receive psychosocial support to cope with uncertain situations. We aim to reunite children with their families or provide them with access to appropriate family-based care. As emergency situations stabilize, World Vision works to support and strengthen formal and informal child protection actors, including faith leaders, to identify and respond to child protection risks in their communities.
Child Protection in Humanitarian Action FAQS:
How does World Vision work to address children’s emotional and mental well-being during and after a crisis?
Conflict and crisis can have a dramatic impact on the emotional and mental well-being of children. Disruption to family, school, and community social structures can be considerably distressing to children. Around the world, World Vision has equipped first responders to help through psychological first aid — a model to identify and respond to potential emotional and psychological distress and to provide basic care and, when needed, referrals to specialized services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, World Vision trained faith leaders to apply this approach to better serve the needs of their faith communities.
In unstable contexts, World Vision creates safe and protective physical spaces (Child-Friendly Spaces) to support the resilience and well-being of children through community-organized, structured activities where children can gather to learn, play, and receive basic psychosocial support. These spaces can also serve as an entry point to assessing and serving broader family needs, including the provision of parental and caregiver support, within a community.
For children especially affected by crisis — including armed conflict — World Vision works either directly or through qualified mental health and psychosocial support partners to provide access to tailored case management and referrals to professional clinical care when required.
How does World Vision help children who are outside of parental care?
World Vision prioritizes the well-being of the world’s most vulnerable children, including those outside of parental care who are susceptible to abuse, neglect, and exploitation. This is especially true of children separated from their parents due to crisis or conflict, those who have lost one or both parents to illness, and children in unaccompanied migration.
We value the family as the primary social unit and affirm its role as the main actor responsible for the care and protection of children. Children grow and thrive best in a family-based environment, not in institutional care — the detrimental impacts of which are now widely recognized.
For this reason, World Vision equips families to care for and protect children, reducing the risk of separation from their immediate and extended family. We also aim to strengthen systems that provide alternative community-based options to institutionalization, and we support residential institutions in transition and de-institutionalization processes. When a crisis or disaster separates children from their families, we work to locate and reunite family members as soon as possible, while ensuring children are cared for within family-based care whenever possible.
While our primary focus is to strengthen systems that allow the child to remain with family members, if remaining with the family is not in the best interest of the child, World Vision supports the family, community, and local authorities to find community-based solutions.
What are some examples of World Vision’s work to address child protection for children in conflict/crisis?
In Colombia, our Hope Without Borders project, funded by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the U. S. Department of State, is coordinating strategic interventions in protection and shelter for Venezuelan migrants. World Vision will enhance child protection and shelter conditions for vulnerable Venezuelan migrants, particularly children at risk, unaccompanied and separated children, caregivers along the Caminantes routes of Tona-Bucaramanga-Bogotá and Cali-Ipiales, and for those living in urban areas.
In Lebanon, World Vision’s psychosocial support (PSS) activities have reached 5,100 children and 1,400 caregivers affected by the Beirut explosion in 2020. PSS kits with play and educational materials were provided to families. Caregivers showing signs of distress were offered community-based PSS sessions and psychological first-aid toolkits.
In Jordan and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, World Vision has adapted its system-strengthening approach to fragile contexts. Working with staff and community partners and stakeholders, we mapped existing systems and structures with uncertainty in mind, leading participants through scenarios to anticipate future disruptions and their potential impacts on violence against children. We also helped participants plan for how systems could be best positioned to respond to these changes.
Through child protection interventions in South Sudan, World Vision supported the release of children associated with armed forces/groups. We equipped 752 released children with case management and other forms of support. Each child possessed a tailored action plan and received, at minimum, three follow-up visits by World Vision social workers.
In response to hurricanes Eta and Iota in Honduras, World Vision established 10 new Child-Friendly Spaces (CFS) serving almost 1,000 in the initial response. Building on community interest and demand, World Vision trained over 150 volunteers to implement CFS in church facilities or community centers, and over 200 volunteers on child protection policies.
Child Protection Stories
Not every child dreams of what they want to be when they grow up. For the 160 million children involved in child labor around the world, thinking about their dream career isn’t part of their plan. Read More
Youth like Yara help keep migrant children in school and free from child labor in our Campos de Esperanza project in Mexico. Read More
